


The Boundaries of Our Fear

by AeeDee



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Comfort, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeeDee/pseuds/AeeDee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between other stories I'm working on, this quiet scene kept lingering in my mind. Floating timeline, sometime when Dick is an adult. I'm afraid there's not much plot here - it's mainly just a "dialogue" about the nature of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boundaries of Our Fear

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Brandon Flowers' "Crossfire".

A room bathed in sunlight. The warmth of someone else. The rise and fall of his chest. Breathing that’s deep and low, a steady motion; a curious sensation like the earth is moving. Shifting somehow.

Dick knows the rhythm of Bruce’s heartbeat.

Sprawled on top of him, he’s kissing his lover on the mouth, gentle and slow so he doesn’t disturb the moment. Gentle and slow, the touch is soothing. The warmth of his body, the rise and fall of his chest, the slowness of his breathing and the hesitant and gentle return of his kisses, each and every single one. Bruce kisses him like he’s fragile, remains perfectly still like he’ll break him if he dares to move. Hands lingering over his hips, hesitant, cautious. Unnecessarily.

Dick can handle his force. Bruce knows. But it’s not about that.

“Dick,” a quiet murmur against his lips, in between the kisses.

“What,” a whisper back, sealed by another.

But there’s no response.

He didn’t expect one. Feels the hands on his hips moving, fingers pressing down, palms flat against his skin; a touch that’s soothing, surprisingly soothing with coarse and rough hands. Rough hands that complement a rough body that’s decorated with scars.

Dick knows the location of each and every one.

He kisses him one last time. Allows that kiss to linger, and with a small sigh he collapses against him, sinking in. Sinks into the warmth of his body, the scent of his skin, of sweat and old cologne on the bedsheets.

Dick's eyes are heavy and closed, black lashes and a stray cut beneath one of his eyes. A fading bruise on his neck. Scars decorating his shoulders like shrapnel. Black hair, catching orange bands of light from the window as Bruce reaches up and slowly, hesitantly trails his fingers through it. So gentle, Dick almost doesn’t feel it; intentional and heavy enough that he does.

That hand lingers; his touch lingers. Trailing his fingers through his hair over and over. 

His heartbeat is speeding up. Dick knows better than to open his eyes. So he plays the game. Acts calm. Acts like it’s not a distraction. Acts like he’s not increasingly overwhelmed. Acts like his own heart isn’t racing.

Acts like he doesn’t know.

Bruce is an easily frightened man. If Dick reacts too strongly, he may become anxious and stop. Because this is the secret that Dick isn’t supposed to have found out. This is the vulnerability.

So he pretends.

Acts like he doesn’t know that Bruce loves him.

Sometimes he gets carried away. The warmth of Bruce's body and the soothing touch of his hand and the arm steadily winding itself across his back. The scars decorating his chest and the knowledge of which ones were inflicted to protect him from harm. To take the bullet. To take the impact of the knife. To take the hit when he was too injured to get back up and move out of the way.

Dick is slowly kissing those scars, one by one.

As he expected, the touch stops. Bruce’s hand is falling away. His breathing slows. And he is again an anxious man, a frightened man at the mercy of soothing kisses that intimidate him. At the mercy of affection he doesn’t believe he deserves. At the mercy of love he wants, of love he values, but doesn’t believe he should keep.

“Because you’re better than me,” he’d said before. He meant it in more ways than one. That he was better. That he deserved better than a cold-hearted bastard that couldn’t see beyond his own fears and complexes. A monster that was lost in his own darkness. That he should have known better than to waste so many years of his life with someone like him.

Dick will spend a lifetime with Bruce.

It’s just that Bruce doesn’t know it yet.

In the meantime, Dick will pretend. He will pretend he can walk away, when they both know he will always come back. He will pretend he has the power to sever Bruce from his life, if they get too angry with each other. He will pretend that he could love someone, anyone, with the same intensity. The same devotion. The same need.

The need to kiss someone, over and over. Because it’s never enough to heal the wounds. Because you can’t stop trying to do the impossible. Because you can never stop trying to fix what is, and may always remain broken.

Dick doesn’t know why he loves Bruce so much. Except that he does, with a love that makes him blind.

Bruce knows why he loves Dick. But it’s too heavy a truth to explain.

Bruce understands each and every one of Dick’s lies. He notices the initial instant when he reacts; the moment when his heart jumps, when his muscles tense and he closes his eyes. When he acts calm, but feels warm to the touch; when his body relaxes. When he sinks against him with sighs that are intended to be silent.

Bruce loves Dick more than he will ever love anyone. But he can pretend, too, until one of them breaks.

Dick believes he will be the first. He believes he’ll get carried away. He’ll take one step too far.

But Bruce knows the truth.

It will be him.


End file.
